The first record of the Abel name appears in the Domesday Book , compiled in 1086 for William the Conqueror. Church records show that the name Abel was found in the county of Kent where they have been seated from very ancient times. They arrived in England with William the Conqueror and the name is mentioned in the Battel Abbey Roll as Abell.
There are many alternative spellings of the name linked to a common root, usually one of the Norman nobles at the Battle of Hastings. The name Abel appears in many references, but from time to time it appears as Able, Abell, Abill, and a number of other variations. Changes in spelling frequently occurred, even between father and son. Scribes recorded and spelled the name as it sounded. Typically a person would be born with one spelling. married with another and buried with a headstone which showed another.
The family name Abel is believed to be descended originally from the Norman race, frequently but mistakenly assumed to be of French origin. They were more accurately of Viking origin. The Vikings landed in the Orkneys and Northern Scotland about the year 870 AD, under their King, Stirgud the Stout. Thorfin Rollo, his descendant, landed in Northern France about the year 940 AD. After Rollo laid siege to Paris, the French king, Charles the Simple, finally conceded defeat and granted northern France to Rollo. Rollo became the first Duke of Normandy, the territory of the north men. Rollo married Charles' daughter and became a convert to Christianity. Duke William who, invaded and defeated England in 1066, was descended from the first Duke Rollo of Normandy.
In the 13th. century the Abels dispersed from Kent westward to Somerset establishing a family seat at Foxecote Manor . They also moved north to Buckingham, Cambridge, Derbyshire and Staffordshire where they had a family seat at Stapenhill and another family seat at Hemington in Northamptonshire. There is a memorial plaque in a cottage in the Derbyshire " plague village of Eyam " recording an Abel who died, with many others, as a result of the plague in the year of 1665 Prominent in the midlands branch of the family was Thomas Abell who in 1540 was Chaplain to Catherine of Aragon
There was a small branch of the family who moved to Scotland who became well entrenched between Edinburgh and Dundee and they also had holdings in Aberdeen, I met one briefly on a business visit to the city in the 1980's. Prominent amongst this branch of the family was John Abel, the celebrated Scottish singer during the reign of King Charles II.
During the 16th. and 17th. centuries there was much political and religious conflict in England, many turned from the established religions and were branded nonbelievers or disidentsand freely " encouraged " to migrate to the " colonies ". The democratic attitudes of the New World spread like wildfire. Many migrated aboard the fleet of sailing ships known as the " White Sails ".. One such was Robert Abel who came in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630 and landed at Weymouth. His son, also Robert, joined the expedition of Sir William Phipps to Quebec in 1690. From the port of arrival many settlers joined the wagon trains going westward. During the American War of Independance some declared their loyalty to the Crown and moved north-ward into Canada, which at that time included Oregon and Washington State, and became known as the United Empire Loyalists.
The patriarch of our branch of the Abel family was William Abel born in 1700 in Oxfordshire probably in either Marsh Baldon or Toot Baldon, two very small villages a few miles south of Oxford. He was married to Martha, ( surname not yet known ) in 1740 and had five children.